Niklas Zennstrom CHECK AVAILABILITY Biography Considered one of the most successful internet entrepreneurs, Niklas Zennstrom is best known for co-founding Skype, an online communications platform which was designed to reduce the cost of telephone calls to businesses and individuals in an increasingly global community. Providing high quality voice and video calls, Skype now has well over 432 million users globally. When Skype was purchased by eBay in 2005, Zennstrom remained the companys CEO for a further two years to ensure its continued success. In 2009, a consortium including Zennstrom purchased Skype Technologies from eBay, and it was sold to Microsoft in 2011 for approximately $8.5 billion. Along with business partner Janus Friis, Zennstrom is also responsible for a number of other well-known companies, including the file-sharing application Kazaa, online video distributor Joost, and peer to peer applications Joltid and Altnet. In 2007, the pair founded Atomico Ventures, a venture capital business designed to invest in entrepreneurs and new businesses who are shaping consumer-facing technologies.

Just some of Atomicos investments include FON, Rdio, Rovio, Last.fm, Fab, and Klarna. Zennstrom and his wife founded Zennstrm Philanthropies in 2007 in order to contribute to charities focusing on human rights, social entrepreneurship and climate change. Zennstrom spent his early career at Tele2 and get2net before becoming CEO of the European everyday.com portal. He graduated from Uppsala University in Sweden with dual MSc degrees in business and engineering physics/computer science. Awards, Accolades, Achievements, Honours H.M.

The Kings Medal (12th size) for significant contributions to Swedish industry and society (2013) Co-founder Skype Lifetime Achievement Award - Oxford Internet Institute (2011) KTH Great Prize (2009) Entrepreneur of the Year - European Business Leaders Awards (2006) Business Leader of the Year - European Voice (2006) Innovation in Computing and Communications Award - Economist Innovation Awards (2006) Wharton Infosys Business Transformation Award for Technology Change Agent of the Year (2006) 100 Most Influential People - Time Magazine (2006) Board Member FON Gigaom | Five Questions with Skype co-founder Janus Friis Five Questions with Skype co-founder Janus Friis Post Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, together could be considered Internet’s biggest trouble makers. As co-founders of Kazaa they brought the wrath of the entire music establishment. With Skype they poked the telephone industry in the eye, before flipping it to eBay for billions. And now they are taking on the television business, with their new start-up, The Venice Project . But the leopards are changing their spots, and are playing nice with the establishment.

Infact, it was one of the main reasons Friis and Zennstrom settled their differences with the music industry and forked over $100 million . They have been building the Venice Project in a stealthy fashion, but are getting close to launch. GigaOM got a chance to chat with Janus yesterday, and here are excerpts from that interview. Advertisement Om Malik: What is The Venice Project? Janus Friis: Television is the most powerful mass medium, and we are trying to do is marry the best of television with the best of internet. What people love about the television is the story telling. What people don’t like is television that is locked in linear time. We want to try and preserve the best bits of television, and discard bits people don’t care for. People like the freedom of choice and like freedom from choice. For example, channels are good, because they define the content. Today, the channels are locked in legacy infrastructure, but on broadband the channels are not locked in time. That’s what the Venice Project is doing. What we have done is created a streaming P2P platform for television. This is a platform, which is good for content owners, for advertisers and of course the viewers.

Since there are no borders on the Internet, this is a global platform. Sometimes we think content owners have legal reasons to restrict content locally and the technology allows them to do that. OM: When will you launch the service? What are the bandwidth requirements for The Venice Project? And how good of a quality will the streams have. JF: Like Skype, The Venice Project is simple – you download and you get free television. There is nothing complicated and simple. Our software is already in beta, and we are doing some bug squashing right now. You can sign-up and we are inviting more people to our beta program. It is near television quality, and it needs about one megabit per second. OM: Does the Venice Project use the same core underlying technologies that were used in Kazaa and Skype? JF: Kazaa and Skype were based on a piece of technology called the “Global Index.” Skype basically built a communication layer on top of that. That technology has evolved since then, and the Venice Project, is built on that global index and we have developed a P2P video streaming layer on top of that core technology. (*) OM: What is the business model for The Venice Project?

JF: We are building an ad-based system, and it is close to the television model. We will do revenue share with the content providers. With our system, people can be targeted with the right kind of ads. We are respecting the copyrights. We will reveal more details about the technology soon. OM: Does this mean that you are spending less time on Skype? JF: Niklas and I are entreprenuers at heart, and eBay understands that. I am still at Skype and I think that is where I spend most of my time. On The Venice Project we have tried to build a management team that will take care of things. (*) Om’s Notes: The Global Index mentioned by Janus is actually Joltid Global Index Software that is owned by a company called Joltid Limited, in which Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis have an equity interest. The company was not part of the Skype-Ebay transaction. Advertisement Niklas Zennstrom Net Worth | Celebrity Net Worth Niklas Zennstrom Net Worth Niklas Zennstrom net worth: $1.3 Billion Niklas Zennstrom Net Worth: Niklas Zennstrom is a Swedish entrepreneur who has a net worth of $1.3 billion.

Niklas Zennstrom earned his net worth through his investments in skype, Kazaa and over thirty other companies. Born on February 16, 1966, in Järfälla, Sweden, Zennstrom is the co-founder of Joost, Atomico, Skype and Kazaa, among other companies. Currently, he is a partner of Atomico and co-chairman of Joost. Holding dual degrees in business and Msc Engineering Physics/Computer Science from Uppsala University in Sweden, he embarked on his professional career 1991 joining Europe's first competitive phone company, Tele2. Only one year later, he teamed up with Janus Friis and together they set up Kazaa, a peer-to-peer file sharing application. Under Niklas's term as CEO, the program became the world's most downloaded Internet software in 2003. Also, the two co-founded Skype in 2002, with the aim to free consumers and businesses associates from the need to pay for talking to each other across the globe.

It didn't take much time for Skype to turn into the chief leader in Internet voice communications worldwide, attracting more than 276 million registered users within less than four years of its launch. Skype crowned its success in September of 2005 when eBay Inc purchased the company for $3.1 billion US Dollars. Zennstrom served as Skype's CEO from its initiation until September 2007. Meanwhile, in 2006, he and his longtime partner Friis founded Joost, an Internet TV service that has changed the way people experience television moving it over to the net. Apart from being an innovative businessman, Niklas Zennstrom loves to spend his time offshore racing, sailing or skiing. Even though he is a Swedish citizen, he lives in London and is happily married.

BBC NEWS | Technology | The Tech Lab: Niklas Zennstrom The Tech Lab: Niklas Zennstrom Niklas Zennstrom co-founded Skype with Janus Friis In the first of a new series in which the world's leading thinkers outline their personal vision of where technology could be leading us, the co-founder of net telephony service Skype, Niklas Zennstrom explains how the collaborative aspect of the internet will shape the technologies of the future. The internet communications industry is probably the most disruptive industry in terms of technology development today. The industry has grown, for the most part, in line with what people want to do online. And its growth is driven by a combination of innovation from the companies that are creating the software, and from user experience. Innovation tends to be the catalyst. However, what people like doing online tells us a lot about how they like communicating and accessing and sharing information with one another. One of the common denominating factors behind usage is what the technology gives the individual in return for their endeavours. A technology platform that is based on a solid, intellectual, R&D driven culture has the opportunity to thrive among a hungry community that wants life made easier.

For me, a disruptive technology is only worthwhile if it gives people something they didn't have or couldn't do before I've spent most of my professional life working in the communications industry. I've seen many technologies come and go. The ones that fail tend to be too hard to use and impenetrable to the average consumer. And they fail because the benefit is often overshadowed by the hype. Many potentially great technologies disappear because, quite simply, they do not give people what they want. Never-ending quest That's the key to it really. I am passionate about technology but it is not the never-ending quest to make things smaller, faster, lighter or cheaper that gets me motivated. The sort of new technology that I think about isn't usually born in a boardroom, a technology campus, the back of a garage or as a result of thousands of marketing focus groups. It tends to originate from a simple idea that can be easily explained to anyone who isn't interested in how you make the technology work but more importantly, interested in what it does. Skype was first launched in April 2003 What intrigues me in particular, are disruptive technologies. Disruption can come in many guises.

It is at its most powerful when it comes in the form of a software platform that genuinely alters the status quo for the better. Disruptive technologies are designed to change the way people interact, work and spend their leisure time. And disruption - if it's working - makes it even easier and more valuable. So when you're using Skype to make a free or very cheap voice call, letting you see the person you are talking to is an additional benefit. Simply put, a disruptive technology gives you what you want and at the same time, a better experience. It sounds so straightforward. However, the exciting part is when you try and build a business on the back of this disruption. It's not always as easy as it sounds. As an active entrepreneur in the internet communications industry, you might assume what I am most passionate about is the core technology itself. I am sure that some people find it easy to picture me in a laboratory swapping lines of code with teams of developers or re-designing the Internet on the back of an envelope when sitting in the back of a cab.

But the truth is that I am incredibly attracted to disruptive technology as a whole, where the innovation behind it strips away social hierarchies or monopolies and helps to make the world a smaller place. You can't ignore it, you have to embrace it. For me, a disruptive technology is only worthwhile if it gives people something they didn't have or couldn't do before. Take mobile phones, for example. The ability to make a phone call on the move, no matter where you happen to be, was a simple but revolutionary step forward in the way we keep in touch with one another. Single out If I was to single out where the next big idea is going to come from, from what I've seen so far, it will be driven by what consumers want. And that's why the internet has been such a fantastic stimulus for many new and disruptive technologies. And those that have been the most successful are the ones which are fun and easy to use. My instincts tell me that sharing knowledge is a catalyst behind adoption of a new technology The internet is a great platform for collaboration. It lets people and businesses all over the world communicate and trade with one another. It is a wholly liberating medium.

The internet has been incredibly disruptive across many industries - from retail to manufacturing to finance to entertainment. Today, for example, over one million people now make their living on eBay, which is astounding. Real disruption ripples out across the market and spawns new businesses. For me, it's about taking a new leap forward. And a leap forward in technological and economic terms. And this leap forward can achieve so many things when it reaches momentum. However, it's important not to confuse disruption in an industry with destruction. Average consumer True disruption prompts an evolution in itself - and one which gives more choice to the average consumer. For example, when Henry Ford invented the mass production car, it didn't mean that other ways of travelling would disappear. It simply meant that people could choose how they wished to travel. And disruption is not about anarchy either. Setting up a business that gives people something for free is not enough to succeed in the long term. The free proposition is obviously compelling but it's actually all about doing something differently. And doing that 'something' to alter the status quo and take the industry to a new dimension. Disruption brings forward the process of economic evolution. The technology platform has to develop alongside this.

And this is what the Internet has done and continues to do. It's easy to get carried away however. We need to keep what disruption is capable of in context. People continue to get excited about new things such as Web 2.0 but to me, this is no more than a label. It's almost impossible to predict how we will use the internet to communicate with one another in the next five to 10 years and I don't have a crystal ball. But my instincts tell me that sharing knowledge is a catalyst behind adoption of a new technology. The more we can do on the internet and the more it helps us to stay in touch or progress a business idea, the more attractive and useful it will be. Janus Friis the King of Disruptive Internet Telecommunications Janus Friis the King of Disruptive Internet Telecommunications Janus Friis may not be a name that many folks outside of the technology sector are familiar with, but the Skype co-founder is a true kingpin in online telecommunications. photo by: richestcelebrities.org Friis was born in Copenhagen, Denmark on 26 June 1976, and he has co-founded multiple communication companies, applications and disruptive technologies over the years.

Foremost among them is the peer to peer Internet telecommunication giant known as Skype. He is also the co-founder of KaZaA. Along with his friend and colleague Niklas Zennstrom, Janus Friis created some of the most disruptive technologies the world is ever seen, and he turned convention on its head in the music industry and with land-based telecommunications. What is particularly interesting about the life of Janus Friis is that he has been able to generate tremendous success with no tertiary education whatsoever. In fact, Friis dropped out of high school and then went to work as a helpdesk support consultant at a company known as CyberCity. Back in 1996, he met Niklas Zennstrom and the friendship and partnership was to become the stuff of legend. At the time of their meeting, Zennstrom was in charge of support at Tele2. So diverse are Janus Friis’ interests and asset holdings that he also created Altnet which is responsible for selling commercial music to KaZaA – another company that he cofounded. His incredible ability to interlink companies vertically and laterally has paved the way for his tremendous success over the years.

In their formative years Janus Friis and Niklas Zennstrom were instrumental in identifying opportunities in online telecommunication, file sharing and disruptive technologies. Together the pair launched Get2Net which is an Internet Service Provider in Denmark, as well as the website everyday.com. With regards to KaZaA, Friis was also the co-designer. Friis Brews a Storm in a Teacup This Danish entrepreneur currently has a net worth in the region of $1.3 billion, largely due to the many software companies that he has created and co-founded. Chief among them are Joltid and Get2Net. His first disruptive technology was KaZaA which she cofounded with his partner Niklas Zennstrom while they were working together in a Danish company known as Tele2. KaZaA was a top-tier file sharing application. The runaway success of KaZaA set the cat among the pigeons in the music industry, and it immediately gained massive global traction. But that wasn’t the end of Janus Friis’ brainstorming because the best was yet to come. Next up was Skype. This telecommunication company was a game changing service.

Skype made conventional telecommunications redundant by offering unlimited international calling options for all Skype members connected via the Internet. Further, Skype offers a paid service for its registered members – far less than the domestic and international rates charged by telecom giants. Back in 2005, Janus Friis and Niklas Zennstrom sold Skype to eBay in a deal that was worth a whopping $2.6 billion. But Niklas was wise enough to see the massive earnings potential with Skype so he kept an ownership interest alive in the company by way of another one of his companies known as Silver Lake Partners. This was true until 2011 when Microsoft Corporation (MSFT) purchased Skype for an incredible $8.5 billion. After Skype, it didn’t take long before Janus Friis and his partner Niklas Zennstrom went on to create the online TV service known as Joost. Vdio is Born and Friis Continues to Disrupt Industry The beauty of Joost was that conventional television no longer needed to be watched on a TV screen – it was available on PC, desktop, and later smartphone devices too. Janus Friis was instrumental in reshaping communications and entertainment in a way that had never been done before.

Giants of industry were brought to their knees with the simplicity of Internet communications and the many applications thereof. Joost was also created with the intent of being sold, lock stock and barrel. This was completed in 2009 when Adconion Media Group purchased Joost. After Joost, Friis and Zennstrom created Rdio which is a subscription service for ad-free music. In 2011, Janus Friis founded Vdio – his very own video streaming startup enterprise. Time Magazine 100 Most Influential People Award In 2006, Time Magazine rated Janus Friis as one of the top 100 most influential people on the planet. Today, Friis resides in London, UK. He has many titles, asset holdings and claims to fame, including being the co-founder of companies like Rdio, Starship Technologies, Aether and Joost. He’s also a partner in Atomico. Even though Friis sold off his Skype holdings in stages, he has never relinquished his connection with the telecom service. As the cofounder of this evolutionary technology, he has thrown his weight behind creating a modern-day Skype application that is ultra-mobile friendly.

He has noted in several transcripts with industry-leading professionals that video calling and messaging for iOS phones and tablets and Android phones and tablets is a top priority. Friis is also the executive chairman of Wire, and he admits that mobile telecommunications applications like Skype are all the rage. Further, there will be end to end encryption available, much like Whatsapp features on its services. Skype will also host these elements on the mobile apps for Android and iOS phones. The focus is now shifting away from messaging towards encryption and securing data transfers. photo by: politiken.dk Friis Shifts Towards Increasing Focus on Privacy The shift to privacy features is gaining traction in a global economy that is increasingly concerned with data protection. Registered users of services like Skype are being targeted by marketing companies with complex algorithms that understand browsing and communication patterns. The privacy features that are currently under development will further safeguard the integrity of online communications. The technology under consideration is focusing more on group video calls, free video calls and related functionality. In 2006, Friis and Zennstrom received the Wharton Infosys Business Transformation Award for using IT to ‘completely transform society or industry’. This prestigious honor is among the most sought after in the information technology sector.

Friis and partner Zennstrom had to file for bankruptcy for Rdio back in 2015. At the time, the company’s assets were sold for $75 million to Pandora Radio. Friis remains at the forefront of disruptive technologies and is hard at work behind the scenes in creating the next big thing! Niklas Zennstrom | Swedish entrepreneur | Britannica.com Swedish entrepreneur Niklas Zennström, (born Feb. 16, 1966, Sweden ), Swedish e-commerce entrepreneur who, with Janus Friis , created various Internet businesses, notably KaZaA, Skype , and Joost . Zennström earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration and a master’s degree in engineering physics and computer science from Uppsala University in Sweden. In 1991 he began working at Tele2, a Swedish telecommunications firm, and in 1997 he hired Friis to head customer service at the Danish branch of Tele2 that Zennström managed at that time. The pair soon began collaborating on their own business ventures, starting with the ISP Get2Net and a Web portal, Everyday.com.

KaZaA In 2000 Zennström and Friis created KaZaA, a second-generation peer-to-peer ( P2P ) file-sharing application that they distributed for free, though it was notoriously loaded with adware (typically, software that generates pop-up ads), spyware (programs that monitor users’ actions), and other malware applications that were secretly installed on users’ computers; exactly how much revenue this generated for the company is unknown. KaZaA sought to achieve the popularity of Napster , a first-generation P2P file-sharing application that in 2001 was ordered shut down following legal challenges in the United States from music and film companies concerned with the software being used for computer piracy . Although Zennström and Friis had hoped to avoid the problems encountered by Napster, their company was sued almost immediately in Dutch courts for copyright infringement. Ordered in November 2001 to ensure that no copyrighted material was shared using KaZaA, the company was sold quickly to various interests, including the Australian company Sharman Networks. Subsequent lawsuits in the United States and Australia resulted in settlements of more than $100 million paid by Sharman, Zennström, and Friis.

Skype Their experience with P2P led Zennström and Friis to develop other P2P ventures in 2001, including Joltid, a provider of traffic-optimization and network-management software and the holder of the pair’s networking patents, and Altnet, a P2P wholesale network. In 2003 they introduced Skype, a voice-over-Internet protocol ( VoIP ) application that offered free basic telephone service—including long-distance and international calls—through the Internet, with the firm’s earnings coming from fees levied on services (such as voice mail, call waiting, and downloaded ring tones) and imposed on calls placed to land-based telephones. By 2005 Skype had more than 50 million users, principally in Europe and Asia. During negotiations in 2005 with eBay (an online auction Web site) about the possibilities of using Skype to facilitate negotiations between eBay customers on more expensive items, discussions about selling Skype to eBay developed. The deal was soon consummated , with the partners remaining on board and eBay agreeing to pay them as much as $2.6 billion; more would be paid if Skype subsequently met various performance benchmarks .

Zennström and Friis made further headlines in 2006 by being named to Time magazine’s list of the 100 most influential people. However, by 2007 the partners had stepped down. Britannica Stories Ringling Bros. Folds Its Tent Two years later eBay announced plans to sell Skype, and Zennström and Friis expressed interest in reacquiring the company. They quickly followed up by declaring that the technology behind Skype was leased through Joltid and that they did not plan on renewing the lease. Subsequent maneuvering resulted in Skype’s sale in late 2009, with majority ownership going to an investor group; Zennström and Friis acquired a minority stake. In 2011 the American company Microsoft Corporation bought Skype for $8.5 billion. Joost Their reduced responsibilities after selling Skype in 2005 left Zennström and Friis ample time to pursue other interests, notably Joost, an Internet video service that they founded in 2006.

In contrast with YouTube and its heavy reliance on short video clips uploaded by amateurs, Joost offered a wide selection of on-demand television shows from established broadcast and cable television content providers. Unlike Skype, Joost was designed to earn money through advertising, that money being shared with content providers, and, unlike KaZaA, Joost sought to protect copyrighted material for all content providers. A beta (test) version of Joost was made available to invited users in early 2007, and by the time of the official launch in May, Joost’s sponsors included the Coca-Cola Company , Intel Corporation , Kraft Foods Inc. , Microsoft Corporation , and Nike Inc. However, Joost failed to become a serious competitor to YouTube, Netflix, Inc. , and Hulu in the Internet video market. In 2009 Zennström and Friis sold Joost to the American online advertising company Adconion Media Group. Internet Firsts: Fact or Fiction? In 2006 Zennström and Friis founded Atomico Ventures , an investment fund that sought out European technology companies that had the potential to be successful in the global market.

Niklas and his wife, Catherine, established Zennström Philanthropies in 2007 to support and engage with organizations in efforts to stop climate change and to support human rights. In 2010 Zennström and Friis founded Rdio, a subscription-based music-streaming service. What Is Skype's History? How Niklas Zennstrom & Janus Friis Founded The Company 22 Only 10 years ago, no one could have even imagined that nowadays everybody would be able to make completely free calls with anyone, anywhere in the world… Not only can you talk with someone on the opposite side of the Earth, buy you can watch him/her in real time, share files and even play games with the person you are connected to, or make a conference call to a group of users. This is what Skype made possible and totally free for everyone! Great! And here is how all happened… But first, what is Skype? You may be amazed, but actually there are many people that don’t really know what Skype is. If you are not one of them just skip this part.

So, Skype is a computer program available for all types of operating systems (like Windows, Android, Linux) with which you can connect to people from all around the world to chat, talk or even call them on their phone. One of its greatest features is that you can make free international calls through the Internet with it. You can also share files and pictures. If you have a camera, you can make video calls and many more thinks like these. Currently the application is owned and developed by Microsoft Corporation, after they bought it for $8.5 billion from eBay.com. It’s completely free and you can download Skype from its official site here . Featured Articles about Niklas Zennstrom - Page 2 - latimes FEATURED ARTICLES ABOUT NIKLAS ZENNSTROM - PAGE 2 BUSINESS Joost in deal with talent firm CAA May 23, 2007 | From Reuters Joost, an Internet television service backed by global media players, said Tuesday that talent firm Creative Artists Agency would help it lure big-name Hollywood programming.

Joost, which was founded by Janus Friis and Niklas Zennstrom, who also started Web telephone company Skype Technologies, has signed up name-brand programming and top advertisers for its service, although it remains in test mode. Advertisement Viacom to offer free TV shows, films on Joost site February 21, 2007 | From Bloomberg News Viacom Inc., owner of MTV Networks and Paramount Pictures, said Tuesday that it planned to deliver free films and television shows through Joost, a rival to YouTube run by pioneers of Internet calling and music sharing. The companies didn't disclose the terms of the agreement, which is multiyear, said Jeremy Zweig, a spokesman for New York-based Viacom. Joost's website is expected to begin operations sometime next month. BUSINESS Google, Skype Invest in Start-Up to Help Hotspots Charge a Fee February 6, 2006 | From Associated Press Google Inc. and EBay Inc.'s Skype Technologies Inc. are investing in a Spanish start-up that plans to help hotspot owners charge for Wi-Fi access, a plan that could face significant opposition from Internet service providers.

The Internet heavyweights were joined by venture capital firms Index Ventures and Sequoia Capital in making a $22-million investment in Madrid-based FON. In its announcement Sunday, FON did not say how much each investor was contributing. BUSINESS Plans to Allow Internet Calls at Wi-Fi Hot Spots July 13, 2005 | James S. Granelli Times Staff Writer, Times Staff Writer Internet telephone service edged closer toward the wireless world Tuesday as Skype Technologies and Boingo Wireless Inc. unveiled calling plans that use Boingo's 18,000 hot spots in 37 nations around the world. For $8 a month, customers can use their laptops at airports, coffee shops and other Boingo wireless fidelity, or Wi-Fi, public zones to make calls. And by the end of the year, handset makers such as LG Electronics Inc. and Samsung Electronics Inc. BUSINESS Joost in deals for TV shows May 2, 2007 | Alex Pham, Times Staff Writer The founders of Joost are trying to map television's future. But they're starting with a bunch of reruns.

Joost, the Internet TV outfit started by the team behind the Kazaa file-sharing program and Skype Internet phone service, said Tuesday that it had struck deals for shows and shorter clips from Time Warner Inc., Sony Corp., the National Hockey League and Hasbro Inc. BUSINESS EBay's Skype phone charges: $1.43 billion October 2, 2007 | From the Associated Press san francisco -- EBay Inc. said Monday that the co-founder and chief executive of its Skype division was stepping down and that the parent company would take $1.43 billion in charges for the Internet phone service division. Of the charges to be taken in the current quarter, $900 million would be a write-down in the value of Skype, EBay said. That charge, for what accountants call impairment, essentially acknowledges that San Jose-based EBay drastically overvalued the $2. BUSINESS EBay to sell Skype to group of investors September 2, 2009 | David Colker EBay Inc., long criticized for its high-priced purchase of Internet phone company Skype, is finally getting out of a marriage that was a mismatch from the start.

The online auction company said Tuesday that it would sell 65% of Skype to a group of private investors led by Silver Lake in Menlo Park, Calif., for $1.9 billion in cash plus $125 million to be paid later. EBay would retain the remaining 35%. The deal, which is expected to close in the fourth quarter, valued Skype at $2.75 billion -- a good bit less than the $3.13 billion EBay paid in all for its 2005 acquisition. BUSINESS Dutch File-Sharing Firm Kazaa to Fold May 22, 2002 | JON HEALEY, TIMES STAFF WRITER Kazaa BV, creator of a popular but controversial online file-sharing network, is folding in the face of a copyright-infringement lawsuit brought by leading record and film companies. But the collapse of the company won't slow the torrent of file sharing online, and it may have no effect at all on the Kazaa network, which bills itself as the world's most popular file-sharing network. BUSINESS Free Net Phone Service to Expand May 19, 2004 | James S.

Granelli, Times Staff Writer The programming duo who created Kazaa, the world's largest network for free music and movie downloading, is ratcheting up plans to expand their latest venture: bringing free phone service to the masses. Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis have signed up 5.5 million users since introducing a preliminary version of their Skype software nine months ago. BUSINESS Making a Net Call to Firms October 7, 2004 | James S. Granelli, Times Staff Writer The world's most popular Internet telephone service said Wednesday that it planned to offer inexpensive calling features to workers in small and medium-size businesses, putting pressure on the big phone companies. Skype Technologies, which has 12 million users, will begin offering the plans early next year, co-founder Niklas Zennstrom said. Zennstrom and partner Janus Friis are the duo behind Kazaa, the most widely used online file-sharing network. Articles about Niklas Zennstrom - latimes Business Briefing / Internet November 7, 2009 | Times Wire Reports EBay Inc.

has settled a legal skirmish with the founders of Skype that threatened to complicate EBay's plans to sell most of the Internet phone service to a group of investors for $2 billion. The settlement gives Skype ownership of crucial software that had been licensed from a company founded by Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis. In return, Zennstrom and Friis will get a 14% stake in Skype, with the investors getting 56% and EBay keeping 30%. The founders also agreed to make a "significant" capital investment in Skype, EBay said. Advertisement EBay to give Skype the heave-ho through an IPO in 2010 April 15, 2009 | Alana Semuels Taking the first steps to unwind its awkward 2005 marriage, EBay Inc. said Tuesday that it planned to spin off Internet phone service Skype through an initial public offering in 2010. The San Jose company said the divorce would allow it to focus on its core e-commerce business, which has struggled in the last year. It announced plans Monday to sell another acquisition, recommendation search engine StumbleUpon, back to its founders.

BUSINESS EBay to give Skype the heave-ho through an IPO in 2010 April 15, 2009 | Alana Semuels Taking the first steps to unwind its awkward 2005 marriage, EBay Inc. said Tuesday that it planned to spin off Internet phone service Skype through an initial public offering in 2010. The San Jose company said the divorce would allow it to focus on its core e-commerce business, which has struggled in the last year. It announced plans Monday to sell another acquisition, recommendation search engine StumbleUpon, back to its founders. BUSINESS Skype founder sees online TV opportunity March 27, 2007 | James S. Granelli, Times Staff Writer They are legendary programmers whose software changed the way people make phone calls and swap music. Skype made them rich. Kazaa for years kept them out of the U.S. to avoid being served a lawsuit by the recording industry -- then cost them millions to settle last summer. Now the two Scandinavian entrepreneurs, Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, are working on the future of television through their new online video service, Joost.

BUSINESS Skype founders may try to buy service back from EBay April 14, 2009 | Dan Fost If the Skype founders succeed in buying back the Internet calling service from EBay Inc., it would dissolve a marriage that made little sense to customers or investors. EBay bought Skype from Scandinavian entrepreneurs Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis in 2005 for more than $3.1 billion. The pair are reportedly seeking private equity partners to help them regain the service. BUSINESS Joost online TV raises $45 million May 11, 2007 | From Times Wire Services Joost, an Internet-based TV service being launched, said it had raised $45 million from five investors including CBS Corp. and Viacom Inc. Index Ventures and Sequoia Capital were the lead contributors. Joost, which has offices in New York, transmits video with peer-to-peer technology, which co-founders Janus Friis and Niklas Zennstrom used to launch the Skype calling and Kazaa music-sharing services.

BUSINESS TV service Joost names new CEO June 5, 2007 | From Times Staff and Wire Reports Joost, the Internet television service, has named longtime Silicon Valley executive Mike Volpi as its new chief executive. Volpi, 40, spent the last 13 years at Cisco Systems Inc., playing an active role in its acquisition strategy. He met Joost's founders, Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, while evaluating their previous venture, Internet phone service Skype, for a potential investor. He later served on Skype's board of directors. BUSINESS Defendants Added to File-Sharing Lawsuit July 9, 2002 | Jon Healey U.S. District Judge Stephen V. Wilson of Los Angeles agreed to let the movie and music industries expand their copyright infringement lawsuit against Kazaa and two other leading file-sharing networks, adding Sharman Networks and five other new defendants. Based in the South Pacific island of Vanuatu, privately held Sharman Networks distributes the Kazaa software and owns its Web site.

BUSINESS Judge Moves to Focus File-Sharing Suit June 4, 2002 | Jon Healey A federal judge took several steps Monday to focus the music and movie industries' lawsuit against online file-sharing networks Morpheus, Kazaa and Grokster. Meanwhile, lawyers for the plaintiffs said they intended to expand the lawsuit to cover the two principal figures in Kazaa--Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis--as well as Sharman Networks, the company distributing Kazaa's software. U.S. District Judge Stephen V. BUSINESS Skype founders may try to buy service back from EBay April 14, 2009 | Dan Fost If the Skype founders succeed in buying back the Internet calling service from EBay Inc., it would dissolve a marriage that made little sense to customers or investors. EBay bought Skype from Scandinavian entrepreneurs Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis in 2005 for more than $3.1 billion. The pair are reportedly seeking private equity partners to help them regain the service. BUSINESS Skype founder sees online TV opportunity March 27, 2007 | James S.

Granelli, Times Staff Writer They are legendary programmers whose software changed the way people make phone calls and swap music. Skype made them rich. Kazaa for years kept them out of the U.S. to avoid being served a lawsuit by the recording industry -- then cost them millions to settle last summer. Now the two Scandinavian entrepreneurs, Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, are working on the future of television through their new online video service, Joost. BUSINESS Skype says phone glitch is fixed August 20, 2007 | From the Associated Press Skype said its Internet phone service had returned to normal after a software bug left many users unable to log on for two days. The company, a division of online auction company EBay Inc., said it would explain what caused the problem in more detail today. "Until then, we'd like to apologize and thank you. Precisely in that order," the company told its customers in a posting on its Heartbeat blog Saturday. "We know how difficult and frustrating the past two days have been.

Skype founders file lawsuit against eBay | Technology | The Guardian Skype founders file lawsuit against eBay Bobbie Johnson in San Francisco Wednesday 16 September 2009 17.55 EDT First published on Wednesday 16 September 2009 17.55 EDT Close This article is 7 years old The founders of Skype have filed a lawsuit against its parent company eBay and the investment group attempting to buy the online telephony service, as the battle over its future continues to escalate. According to documents filed with a court in California, Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis - who founded Skype in 2003 before selling it to eBay two years later - are seeking an injunction against the service. They are also requesting millions of dollars in damages for what they claim is the unlicensed use of a networking technology they own. The dispute could see Skype shut down, potentially derailing eBay's plan to sell off a majority stake in the internet phone business for $1.9bn to a group which includes venture firm Index Ventures and private equity firm Silver Lake.

The quarrel surrounds a piece of technology called 'Global Index', which belongs to Joltid, a separate, UK-based company started by Zennstrom and Friis in 2002. It provides some of the crucial peer-to-peer sharing systems that underpin Skype - but when eBay bought the internet telephone company in 2005 for $3.1bn, it decided not to purchase the system. Instead, it agreed to license Global Index from Joltid for the foreseeable future. Zennstrom and Friis left Skype in 2007, and earlier this year Joltid revoked the license, leading to a series of court battles between the two companies over the details of their contractual agreement. Although eBay is believed to be working on alternative technologies to replace Global Index, it admitted in a regulatory filing that the dispute could prevent Skype - which currently has almost 500m users worldwide - from operating as normal. "If the matter is not resolved through negotiation," the company said, the "continued operation of Skype's business as currently conducted would likely not be possible". The news also leaves the plan to sell off part of the company under a cloud.

Earlier this month eBay announced that it had agreed to sell a 65% stake in the business to a consortium of investors that included Index Ventures - one of Skype's original backers - and a venture capital fund led by web pioneer Marc Andreessen. At the time, the deal was welcomed by all parties and presumed to have the blessing of Zennstrom and Friis because of the close links between Joltid and Index.

Question: Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis founded which Internet telephone company?
Answer: Skype